12 November 2007

Aesthetic Pollution

What is Aesthetic Pollution?

Spoiling the visual beauty. Its also called Visual Pollution.

Advertisements on buses, bill boards, overhead wires, buildings etc, cause Aesthetic Pollution. Its hard to define what causes Aesthetic Pollution as beauty is in the eyes of the.. err. spectator .. observer.. .. whatever. Ask the company which put up the bill board and they'll definitely tell you that the bill board is adding to the Aesthetic Beauty. Of course, its the money speaking. Isn't it always the money which is speaking? How many businessmen (or customers!) have ever heard of Ethical Business Conduct?

I remember there was a plan to build a larger building next to Taj Mahal. It came up in the news, became a controversy, some blame games and then all news channel fell silent. The point raised was that it'll spoil the beauty of Taj Mahal. Valid point. Apparently the project was dropped.

One of my friends recently visited Badami. He says, as you enter the town you can see the beautiful and ancient caves and buildings along with three mobile towers in the background! That totally spoils the beauty. No photos taken!

Why don't we think of beauty being spoilt in our city or in our neighborhood? I was just reading another news: São Paulo has banned outdoor advertising. Many other cities around are considering the same.

Can we do that in our cities as well?

Well, we don't even have decent roads or footpaths. For the last one week, Times of India has been showing pictures of bad roads all over Bangalore and nothing is being done. We have garbage dumped all around the bins. Nobody throws wrappers in the dust bins. I don't see a sense of cleanliness itself.

I saw an ad of a property developer which said something like "are your neighbours spoiling your happy moments?". The accompanying picture has a cute little girl in a fairy dress posing for a photograph and somebody is fixing a dish antenna in the balcony of the flat of the adjoining building in the background.

People take a lot of care of their house, their personal looks, their cars, their 'happy moments'. Its just a mater of extending the same concept a bit more....

We have to first understand the importance of Aesthetic Pollution. Its a new concept around here and it'll take some time before people accept that its not a nice thing. It'll take even longer to take any action.